And We’re Back

January 9, 2012 ~ riggledo ~ 2 Comments

Well, it was fun while it lasted but, as the saying goes, all good things must come to an end eventually.

After two long and wonderful weeks off work, I’m back in the office today where, really, nothing much has changed. I don’t really know what I was expecting. The same messes are still in the back room. My office is exactly the way I left it, not that I expected much to change. Bertha has been out most of the time I’ve been gone with some sort of medical issue. She’s fine now, or so I’m told (she’s still out of the office,) but with her absence it was just K and John.

I don’t seem to have missed much. It was the holiday’s so that certainly accounts for some of it, but I’m also reminded that my presence here isn’t all that valuable. I’m not complaining, mind you. I’ve got a decent job with a good pay check. It’s just apparent that life would carry on here without my help, if I weren’t here.

On my last day before vacation, John gave me my annual evaluation. It was good, of course, though it seemed a bit contrived; speaking of nothing ever changing. We had the requisite “where do you see yourself in…” conversation. K and I have a term for the outcome of these conversations. It’s “ponies”. John has all kinds of grandiose things to say and ideas about what we can do within the department or the company. He makes big assertions about what he will do for us, and then they don’t amount to anything, ever. In other words, he promises us pretty, pretty ponies. This time the pony was the prospect of a new job, within the hierarchy, above my current level…

This May I will have my ten-year anniversary in this job. I will have worked for the same company, in the same department, for the same manager, doing more or less the same job, for ten years. Sure, there have been minor changes here and there in my responsibilities, but for the most part, it’s been the same job. I have been promoted three times and received two additional title changes that were lateral moves. I’ve received raises every year; some better than others based on the economy. But what I’ve been acutely aware of, lately, is that I’ve gone as far as I can go in this position. There are no more promotions to be had. No more title changes likely. No more progress to be made in this position. I’m in the Army: I AM all I can be… here.

The idea behind that discussion was that John thought it was a good move and would campaign for a new position to be created, wherein I would run the Emergency Response Program for the entire region, not just for our building. It would be a lot more work and a lot more responsibility, and to be honest, I’m not 100% sure it’s what I want, but it would be progression…

This morning, in a brief conversation with John, it became apparent that he doesn’t really think anything will come of the idea. Basically, he doesn’t think he can convince the right people of the value of such a manuever, and I can’t say I’m surprised. I believe I’ll name this Pony “believe it when you see it.”

Long before my evaluation happened though, I began thinking about what comes next. I knew I had gone as far as I could go in this position and unless I want to spend the next 20 years doing the exact same thing I’m doing now (I don’t) for incrementally more money (I can’t,) it’s time to start making a change. This year, I have to really think about the direction my “career” is going to go and start making some things happen. I put “career” in quotes because I’ve never thought of this as a career, just a job. But after ten years, is that still true?

Hand Knives and Other Nonsense

June 24, 2011 ~ riggledo ~ 2 Comments

Based on the existence and fairly stringent enforcement of child labor laws in this country, I feel fairly confident that I can take it for granted that I work with adult, full-grown people in my company.

Adult, full-grown people generally possess common sense; granted they use it far less frequently than we might like, but they possess it nonetheless.

Sometime with-in the last few weeks one such adult, full-grown person, upon arriving at a meeting wherein breakfast was provided, (despite the ongoing directive to conserve funds wherever possible, I might add) and noticing the lack of proper cutting implements to divide the unsliced bagels, took it upon herself to bring a large serrated knife from her cubicle into the conference room to cut the bagels. She then proceeded to place one of said bagels into her lesser hand and begin slicing the bagel in two. What happened next is very unclear as there were, in reality, very few witnesses to the event, but from what I understand the adult, full-grown person somehow managed to cut through the bagel and fairly deeply into one of her fingers.

Having used her own knife, brought from her own cubicle and under her own steam sliced into her own finger, she took it upon herself to clean up her mess, wrap up her hand, and driver herself to the emergency room where she received, I’m told, approximately eight stitches. No one called 911. Crime Scene Cleaners were not called to clean and dispose of the bio-hazardous fluids that escaped. No one even bothered to call security and submit an incident report. Hell, it wasn’t eve filed under Workers Compensation. The woman is fine. No lasting effects from her injury. She has even returned to work.

What with us being a bunch of adult, full-grown people, you might think that was the end of the story.

You would be wrong.

Earlier this week, I was shown a document, created by an unknown entity, and approved and finalized by someone who makes a lot more money than I do, to be posted in all break rooms and conference rooms. The document was printed in full color and laminated thickly so that it would hold up for a good long time to come. As is so often the case (particularly with things that originate where this document did) not nearly enough, or the right eyes fell upon this document in advance of calling it complete and only after it had been finalized, printed and posted did I see it (not that I’m calling myself the right eyes.)

I have received a number of comments from people I am friendly with in the building. People who are not complaining to me in an official capacity or with any expectation that I will, or could, effect a change, but simply because they know me and my level of intellect and know I will understand where they are coming from. Nonetheless, these people are complaining as they state, rightly, that this document is downright offensive.

The document is titled “Careful Cutting: Knife Safety Tips”, and just as it sounds it is a list of suggestions how to handle a knife safely… Because clearly one distracted person who took responsibility for herself is irrefutable proof that the entirety of modern society is too ignorant to manage a knife without some guidance. The document is laid out as a list of bullet points; brief sentences with suggestions that are entirely valid, though clearly written for kindergarteners. It is written with some of each point bolded as one would do for a document that has highlights within each point that are most important. In other words, I make a list of things and I’d like you to read the entire list, but if you won’t, please at least read this part and you’ll get the primary focus of the line item. The purpose of strategic bolding in a document such as this, is that even if you don’t read anything more than what I have strategically bolded, you will still get the point of the document.

That said, here is what this document says to most people who will read it:

Following these basic guidelines for using knives can help to ensure safety in the work environment.

Be alert and pay attention
Always use a solid surface
Do not hold food
Point away. [That actually is a sentence on the document. Just “Point Away.”]
Use your free hand to firmly hold the food
Never use a knife
Hand knives
Do not startle or distract someone
Wash and store knives immediately

Honestly? Some of those are really good advice; words to live by, even! However, with the exception of number six, I’m not sure how clearly they actually convey whatever point it is we were trying to convey, which I can only assume is not “We think you’re too stupid to take care of yourself.” Now don’t get me wrong. I understand we live in a ridiculously litigious society where we sue fast food restaurants for selling hot coffee that we then burn our vajayjays with when we put the scalding hot cup between our legs and then drive, resulting in the necessity to print “caution, contents may be hot” on every hot-beverage paper cup ever made for the last 17 years. But I think the actions of the woman in this situation proved that she was not interested in suing her employer for something she so clearly held total responsibility for.

Be alert and pay attention Well, yes. Whether you’re driving, or walking, or cutting a bagel or balancing your checkbook (does anyone do that anymore?) being alert and paying attention seems like excellent advice. It prevents mistakes from being made and erroneous information being disseminated. Admittedly, it also prevents fingers being severed… usually.
Always use a solid surface Always? Isn’t it conceivable that there will be times when a solid surface will not be ideal? I like my bed to be soft and fluffy. For sure my pillow needs to have some give. My chair at work could actually stand to have a bit less solid surface that I sit on. On the other hand, I prefer a solid surface to drive on and a solid surface to write on and a solid surface on which to put my laptop. Solid surfaces do, indeed, serve many purposes; but “always”?
Do not hold food Holding food can certainly become messy from time to time. Crumbs drop everywhere. Sauces tend to drip off of the food item and run down your hand and arm. It can make for a real mess. Hell, even today I ate a couple donuts with a knife and a fork, (In clear violation of rule number 6). But sometimes you have to hold food. It’s pretty tough to prepare food without holding it from time to time and some things, like pizza, hamburgers, hot dogs and sandwiches, were just made to be held (actually I eat pizza with a knife and fork too, but clearly I’m a rebel.)
Point away. Seriously. That’s an entire sentence. I have no idea what purpose this advice serves. I mean, my mother told me pointing was rude. And after a while your arms get tired. Clearly more research is needed on this one. I need better guidelines before I can go around pointing, away.
Use your free hand to firmly hold the food But?!? Didn’t you just tell me not to hold the food?
Never use a knife It would be pretty tough for me to imagine going the rest of my life without ever using a knife again. Nonetheless, I think we could actually have accomplished exactly what this document is trying to accomplish with these four simple words. NEVER. USE. A. KNIFE. I can guarantee you will not cut your own finger off if you never use a knife. You will also never cut a steak, or toast and shmear a bagel or make a peanut butter and honey (or jelly if you prefer) sandwich, effectively, again, either.
Hand knives The only thing I can figure is this must be the working title of an Edward Scissorhands Prequel/Sequel (commingsoontoatheaternearyou!)
Do not startle or distract someone Again, it only seems polite. I mean, some people really don’t like surprises and some people are easily distracted and need to be able to focus. Wouldn’t you feel guilty if you startled someone into a heart attack or something? I know I would!
Wash and store knives immediately Well, I mean,… I’m kinda in the middle of something right now. Can’t it wait till I’m finished? Also, what knives? I don’t see any knives. Does that mean I have to guy buy some knives first? You’re kind of asking a lot.

I admit it. I think the whole document is stupid. I think it’s utterly absurd that something like this has to be made because of one isolated incident with one person who hasn’t even suggested that it’s anyone else’s fault, but if we are going to do something along these lines, at least we could come up with something that is a little better written and laid out!

(By the way, if you’re anything like me, you really want to know what the rest of the document actually really says. If you’ re not interested, you can stop here and skip to the bottom to leave your comments. Ahem. Otherwise, here is the rest of the document in its entirety.)

Be alert and pay attention when you have a knife in your hand. Do not get distracted or engage in conversation when using knives. Keep your eyes on the blade at all times.
Always use a solid surface to cut on.
Do not hold food in the palm of your hand while cutting (i.e. bagels, fruit.)
Point away. When you are using a knife, always cut downward and with the blade of the knife angled away from you. Never angle the knife toward you or your fingers.
Use your free hand to firmly hold the food item against the solid surface, making sure fingers are out of the way of any slips that might occur.
Never use a knife for any purpose other than cutting. A knife blade is not to be used as bottle/can openers, staple removers, box cutters, etc.
Hand knives to another person handle first, with the cutting edge pointed away from your palm.
Do not startle or distract someone who is using a knife.
Wash and store knives immediately after use. Hand wash knives with the edge of the blade away from your hands and dry thoroughly. Never leave knives in a sink.

Actually, I don’t think knowing the full text of the document makes it any less offensive…

Anybody know if they sell “safety knives” next to the “safety scissors” for kindergarteners?

Amber Alert

January 4, 2011 ~ riggledo ~ 3 Comments

I was running absurdly late for work yesterday, made all the more unreasonable by the fact that I decided not to take a shower in the morning. I intended to restart my gym routine this week and I would, of course, take a shower after my workout. I needed to get to work earlier so I could go to the gym. I piddled around the house a little bit due to the “extra time” I thought I had allowed myself by not showering first. And then a few minutes after I ate my breakfast, I started getting that feeling. You know the one. The one we don’t discuss in polite society… woops. The one that says, You are never going to make it out of the house without a stop by the porcelain throne, first. Dammit!

All the “extra time” I had allotted myself was suddenly gone, and I was very late! Now I’m not even going to be able to justify time away from work to go to the gym! Major Planning Fail!

I was standing in front of the mirror, working on my now arduous oral hygiene regime when I got a text on my iPhone from a 918 phone number:

918 Phone Number, 9:45 AM: Hey Kevin!!!! Guess who?!

Waiting waiting waiting…..(Jeopardy Theme)

Clue: been friends since 1992

I had a feeling I already knew, only I thought I had a cell phone number for this person. I thought I had a cell phone number for everyone in Tulsa that I cared to interact with. There are other people in the 918 that I wish not to interact with ever again and so I didn’t want to reply blindly.

I texted the number to my mother to find out if it was a number she recognized. Mom confirmed the identity and I realized the number I had for this person was one digit off.

I waited a while to reply. I needed to finish getting ready and get to work and I didn’t need a conversation with anyone to slow me down.

Me, 11:28 AM: Hey Amber! How’s it going? Been a while!

Her: Hey! Good! Congragts on EMT!!

Me: How’d you know that?

Her: Haha…..I’m watching you…..don’t look over your shoulder…..

Me: That would be impressive. There’s a 23rd floor window over my shoulder. With closed blinds.

Her: Ha! I had to e-mail your mother to see if you were still alive!!! Lol.

How the story tracks from “to see if you were still alive” to “Congrats on EMT” I do not know.

~~~~~

Amber and I became friends in 1992 when we both worked in the grocery store in my mother’s back yard. I’ve mentioned this before. There used to be a big empty field behind our house and then they built a grocery store there.

I swore at the time that I had met Amber somewhere before, but neither of us could figure out where. To this day, it seems like I had to have already known her (though, to be honest, my impression is that we weren’t friendly. I thought she was a snob, and in fact didn’t talk to her for a while at work because of it) but who knows.

One summer evening, I had gone to the store to pick up my pay check and Amber was just getting off work. I ran into her in the magazine aisle as she was heading back to the staff lockers to get her purse. We chatted for a little while and it came up that we were both hungry. Amber had a car and I had money burning a whole in my pocket (nothing new about that) so I convinced her that she should drive us to my favorite (no longer in existence) restaurant and I would buy her dinner.

We found that we had a lot in common at the time; at least enough to build a friendship on. We started hanging out regularly on weekends. She would drive and I would pay. We became good friends.

Amber is two years older than I, and at the end of the summer she started classes at Oral Roberts University and I started my Junior Year at Broken Arrow Senior High School. Our friendship continued and we hung out many week-ends and talked on the phone all the time. It occurs to me now, Amber was probably the only person with whom my mother never rushed me off the phone.

Amber is beautiful and very flirtatious and never wanted for guys attention. Eventually she told me about a guy who was asking her out. She told me she really wasn’t all that into him but she was going to go anyway. That seemed strange to me, but then what do I know about relationships. I said nothing. A while later, I was on the phone with Amber one day and she told me that she was “going steady” with this guy and that we couldn’t be friends anymore because he didn’t think it was right for her to spend time with another guy when she was “with” him. I told her that was stupid, we had been friends for a while, I was here first and she didn’t even like him all that much. I told her it was her loss.

A couple of weeks later she called me and told me I had been right and that she wasn’t going to see him any more. I told her this was the only time I was going to take her back after being dumped for a boyfriend. She promised never to do it again, and she didn’t.

A while later Amber met Brian, a handsome, brilliant, multi-talented, disgustingly self-confident man who fell head over heals in love with her the minute he laid eyes on her. Amber’s biggest complaint about Brian was that he wasn’t jealous of our relationship. A few months before I moved to California, they were married, have been together ever since and have three children together.

In college Amber studied Physical Therapy and she was all about physical fitness and nutrition even though she never struggled with her weight a day in her life. She even joined Weight Watchers even though she was thin. I used to resent that attitude, but now I understand it better. Despite getting her degree, she hasn’t worked a day in her adult life. She’s a stay at home wife and mother and her brilliant husband makes more than enough money that she’ll never have to think twice about that lifestyle choice.

When I moved to California I used to communicate regularly with Amber by way of instant messenger programs. I enjoyed implementing these tools to stay in touch with people I cared about while I was working. Though there is only a two-hour time difference, by the time I get home from work and get settled in and have dinner, it is too late to call people back “home” even if I were so inclined, which I’m really not. I’m not a phone person. So using Instant Messenger to talk during the waking hours was a nice treat.

The problem was, Amber usually initiated our conversations and they were usually about nothing. She would sit for hours typing messages to me while I was trying to work and they were about things like recipes and her workout that day and how she’d just found out there were x number of calories in y food item. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to talk to her, I just didn’t have time for meaningless rambling while I was trying to work. I started ignoring her messages and then pretending I had been away from my desk while she was typing and “Oh so sorry I didn’t see all that!” lying.

We drifted. A few times I tried to have deep, personal conversations with her and she just blew them off and diffused them with her idea of humor. We drifted more.

Several years ago I began having conflict with my mother. Amber has known my mother for years, but she know’s the mother that outsiders are allowed to know, not the mother that her children know. One day, Amber asked me if I had any plans to come back for a visit any time soon. Up until then I had always made time for Amber and Brian when I came to town. I told her I really didn’t have any plans and didn’t really know when I would because I was no longer on good terms with my mother and I couldn’t see myself coming to visit her, maybe never again.

The appropriate response to that would have been sympathy for a friend. Curiosity about what could have gone so terribly wrong and why I might never want to visit my mother again. Understanding for how hard parent-adult child relationships can be.

Her response? “Don’t say that! As a mother it hurts me to hear a child talk about not talking to their mother. You don’t have kids so you can’t understand…”

Few things in this world piss me off more, or faster than, “You don’t have ____, so you can’t understand” or “You aren’t ____, so you can’t understand.” It just belittle’s the person’s intelligence and it’s not a valid argument for anything. We drifted some more.

A few years ago, an e-mail was making the rounds. By today’s blogging terms I suppose it would be a “meme”. It was one of those, replace-my-answers-to-these-questions-with-your-answers-and-forward-this-to-all-your-friends-and-back-to-me, blah, blah, blah e-mails. One of the questions on the e-mail was about how many piercings you have.

When I left Oklahoma, I had one ear pierced. Interestingly, right now, I can’t remember which one it was. Several years ago now, my friend Heather ~~begged~~, ~~bullied~~, convinced me to get the other ear pierced stating that times had changed and it was no longer trendy to wear only one ear ring. She promised that it was not a statement about one’s sexuality. I hadn’t yet worked out my issues and I cared a great deal about that fact. When I completed the e-mail and sent it out to my friends (and my sister) I simply answered the question honestly.

“How many piercings do you have?”

“Just my ears”.

I wondered if anyone would notice or comment. Amber’s response? “So what?!? Are you gay now?” Coming from the private school, good-little-Christian-girl background that I know she does, I automatically interpreted the tone as being derogatory and insulting (I still do). We drifted completely.

In contrast to that, over the years Amber has asked me repeatedly, almost obsessively about my love life. “Do you have a girlfriend yet?” “Why don’t you have a girlfriend?” “Don’t you want to have a girlfriend?” “When are you going to get a girlfriend?” “You need a woman.” Somewhere inside me, every time she asked these questions I knew the answer, I just couldn’t face it and I sure as hell couldn’t tell her. Her incessant prying combined with my own internalized shame only served to make me resent her for pushing. I always answered her tersely and she just laughed it off as thought it were nothing. She never could take the hint that this was something she ought not ask me about.

~~~~~

We exchanged text messages as conversation for about 15 minutes when she finally asked:

Her: OK- so- do you have a woman yet??

I waited several minutes to answer. I wanted to tell her the truth, but– well, there is no but. I was scared. Plain and simple.

Me: What are you? My grandmother? Would you like to pinch my cheeks and talk about my punum too? No. No woman.

She waited nearly twenty minutes to respond. I wondered if she’d finally gotten the message and was leaving the topic alone. I wondered if she was considering the possibilities and going to ask me, again, if I was gay “now”. I made up my mind to answer her honestly if she asked. I wondered if she had gotten her feelings hurt and was pouting in silence as she was prone to do. And then she replied.

Her: hee hee hee. Oh well, just checking.